George Town, Exuma Islands, Bahamas to Thompson Bay, Long Island, Bahamas
Saturday, February 15 to Friday, February 21, 2025
Junkanoo
Before leaving George Town on Monday (17-Feb), we attended a small festival in town. The Cruisers Junkanoo Fundraiser is a relatively new event in George Town that helps support the local junkanoo groups.
In this fundraiser, locals teach a group of cruisers some of the dance and musical numbers to participate in a parade. It was a very fun event to watch. Before the parade started we had the opportunity to talk to some other cruisers as the parade groups gathered to warm up. The parade itself was incredibly lively and offered a glimpse into this Bahamian cultural event.
Thompson Bay / Salt Pond, Long Island, Bahamas
Monday morning we left Elizabeth Harbour with several other boats. Each sailboat motor-sailed with a jib in the morning, and no sails in the afternoon. Throughout the day boats peeled off in different directions, with five of us arriving at Thompson Bay about the same time. It was a seven hour trip to cover the 36 nautical miles (42 statute miles). During this trip we crossed over the Tropic of Cancer (in 2025, it is at N 23d 26’ 22’’), thus putting us officially in the Tropics!
During our stay at this anchorage that has approximately 15 boats, we have talked to more cruisers than while at George Town, which had 300 boats. The first couple we met gave us a helpful rundown of the area. Two other couples we met do a lot of summertime hiking.
Some highlights from this week at Long Island:
Space X Flyover
Car Rental
One day we rented a car to visit the southern portion of the island, which is 80 miles long. With the car we were able to visit the Shrimp Hole, Deans Blue Hole and Clarence Town, along with eating a delicious lunch at Max’s Conch Bar & Grill in Deadman’s Cay. We even picked up a local hitchhiker who needed to get to a town for provisions.
It was interesting to drive in a British Driving system. During our walks in the Bahamas, we had to learn to walk on the “other” side of the road, and we did pretty good in the car, only driving on the wrong side of the road a couple of times, thankfully when no traffic was around.
Shrimp Hole is an inland blue hole (grotto) behind the ruins of an old Spanish mission. We did not see the freshwater shrimp known to live here in the crystal clear water. We also did not navigate down the sharp rocks to get into the water, but it was still worth the quick stop here.
The star of the day was seeing Dean’s Blue Hole. This blue hole, located on the Atlantic side of the island, is 660’ deep! Since it is tucked behind a natural rock jetty, the waves and swell were nearly non-existent, perfect for snorkeling after hiking along the mid-level cliffs. It was a little eerie swimming out to the floating platform in the center of the hole, watching the ground disappear into the abyss. But like sailing in blue water, does it really matter if the ground is 6’, 60’ or 600’ away? I’d say no, since they are all above my head. Even more spectacular than the hole itself was viewing all of the fish swimming on the edge of the hole. We were the only two people at the hole and noticed that the fish did not scatter if you moved slowly through the water. Over and over again, we swam up current towards the sun, turned around and floated back to the hole (we had an incoming tide and morning sun) watching the fish swim around below us. In this direction, the sun lit up the colors of the fish. A liveaboard family arrived as we were getting out of the water, so we lingered a bit enjoying conversations with this adventurous family.
In Clarence Town we spotted the adventurous family’s beautiful 70’ Sunreef catamaran at anchor, stopped at Erica’s Bakery & Shop for a sweet treat and drove past the large churches perched on two hilltops, before heading back north for lunch at Max's.
Boaty Stuff
Some boat tasks we are struggling with include a broken handle to pump out the head and replacing the zincs on our keel cooling refrigerator. Fortunately, we have two heads onboard and after several failed attempts to glue the handle back together, we’ve ordered a new handle to pick up at a later date. The zinc issue is odd. We ordered the same zincs that are currently in place. When changing out the two zincs, only one would screw in and the second will not bite with the zinc in place. While holding his breath, Jimmy tried an array of screws, dropping a few in the process to no avail. In the end it required drilling a larger hole part way into the zinc to let the screw set in a bit deeper.
Temporary fix of head handle | Utopia's donut shaped zincs | Jimmy's drilling fix
While Jimmy fussed around with the zincs on day one of the project, I swam around the boat and scrubbed the hull. The next morning, I stayed in the cockpit to hand him tools and parts as needed. Well, that afternoon, still feeling great about getting the zincs screwed in, we saw a couple of sharks swimming near the dinghy dock we use for shore access. I suspect that they are nurse sharks, but I think I would hurry out of the water if I saw one near. To be honest, I elected to not jump in the water that afternoon. One could say it was the cloudy skies and breezy conditions that kept me in the comfortable boat...
Post # 25-8 | Below are links for the previous week's post (#25-7) & the post following this one (#25-9)
Lucky you! We arrived in May. Could barely get off the boat due to swarms of man eating mosquitos!